Monsanto has threatened to sue the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) over its publication of the data on the company’s NK603 GM maize.

Claire Robinson, editor at GMWatch and research director at Earth Open Source, said: “We have criticised EFSA over its conflicts of interest with industry and its lax regulatory policies for GMOs, which help industry but operate against the public interest.

“But EFSA is to be applauded for the publication on the internet of Monsanto’s full NK603 dossier as part of its transparency initiative. It was an action taken in the public interest.

“Monsanto’s threat to EFSA clearly shows that the company is an enemy to the public. Any reputable company would be proud of its products and open about the science that underpins their development.

“But Monsanto’s secretive behaviour and aggression towards EFSA, the public food regulatory agency, shows it has much to hide.

“We encourage scientists and members of the public to download and read the Monsanto dossier and see for themselves the quality of the industry science that goes into an application to commercialise GM foods.

“We also encourage them to compare the quality of the Monsanto tests on NK603 maize with the study performed by Prof Seralini on the same maize. We believe it will be an educational experience.”

*EFSA’s biased and asymmetric evaluation of the 2012 study on GM maize NK603 by Prof GE Séralini, compared with EFSA’s acceptance of industry studies that are far weaker in design

*how the GM industry-funded group, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), heavily influenced the lax assessment process used by EFSA to evaluate the safety of GM foods and crops

*how EFSA undermined a democratically established EU law on pesticides, enabling industry and regulators to ignore studies from the independent scientific literature on pesticide risks

*how EFSA promoted an ILSI-originated concept called Threshold of Toxicological Concern, which allows untested or inadequately tested chemicals to remain on the market on the basis of assumed safe levels that have not been verified by testing

*how experts with links to industry and ILSI have systematically infiltrated EFSA from the beginning of the agency’s existence and promoted industry-friendly tools and methodologies. These have been incorporated into EFSA’s risk assessment processes. Thus even if an expert with a conflict of interest is removed, their legacy remains behind them in the form of weak risk assessment processes that put public health at risk.

*suggestions for reform, including: ending to reliance on industry studies for safety evaluations; tightening of EFSA’s rules on conflicts of interest and sanctions for those who breach them; establishing a code of scientific practice that lays down a systematic and transparent method of evaluating the entire body of scientific evidence; external peer review of EFSA opinions; broadening the range of scientific expertise on EFSA’s expert panels; and ensuring wider participation in decision-making to include social, economic and ethical factors.

Background

The journal editor commissioned the paper after the publication of the Corporate Europe Observatory/Earth Open Source report:
Holland, N., Robinson, C., and Harbinson, R. (2012). Conflicts on the menu: A decade of industry influence at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Brussels, Belgium, Corporate Europe Observatory and Earth Open Source.

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